The pursuit begins Spring 2010
Rating: 3/10
Running Time: 110 minutes
US Certificate: PG-13 UK Certificate: 12A
The Bounty Hunter is a romantic comedy cum half arsed crime thriller starring two of Holywood’s most slappable leads. There is the incredibly smug, chipmunked face Gerard Butler whose career is going down a very dark path and then there’s ultra annoying, uber-tanned, whiny Jennifer Aniston. So unsurprisingly, the film isn’t great.
Milo Boyd (Butler) is a bounty hunter who finds out that his next target is his ex-wife, Nicole, a bail-jumping reporter on the cusp of a huge story about a botched murder investigation. He tracks her down to Atlantic City where he accosts her and drives her back to face justice. Things don’t run smoothly for Milo as the bickering duo run into trouble with a gang of moneylenders and the police. The crime detective thriller aspect is poorly done and just reminded me of the copious poorly made detective movies of the Seventies and Eighties that clog up Sunday daytime television schedules. The peripheral characters are never properly constructed and they flit from unconnected scenario to the next with little of any merit being added to the story.
The ex’s hooking back up together and having hillarious fisticuffs is a well-worn concept, done before in the equally awful The Break Up (also staring Aniston), Fool’s Gold, Tomb Raider 2 and Kramer vs Kramer (not a comedy but funnier than this), to name but a few, but where this falls down is that the characters are far from likeable. Butler recylces another no-nonsense bad guy performance but this time doesn’t just do gentle ribbing, instead Milo is a truly horrible person, so when they inevitably make it back together, it’s incomprehensible that anyone would ever take him back. One searching question this film brings up, is just how much public abuse can a man dole out to a woman without anyone piping up? Milo rugby tackles, manhandles and bundles Nicole into the boot of car in front of crowds of indifferent people with not mite of consternation. To be fair, Aniston and Butler do share some credible onscreen chemistry but the whole are-they-aren’t-they shagging publicity stunt that’s been going on for a few weeks was pretty vile.
It's Got: Nothing new, hopefully the death knell of Butler and Aniston's careers.
It Needs: A decent story, better gags, different cast.
Summary
This romantic comedy cum half baked crime thriller is a hopelessly unfunny, unoriginal and ultra-irritating movie. On this form Aniston and Butler, and their slappable faces, should be consigned to the scrapheap of Hollywood.